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Our research group has recently discovered how to polymerize triglycerides such as soybean oil along with common monomeric feedstocks such as styrene to form what is known as a â€œthermoplastic elastomerâ€ (TPE). A TPE is a general category of plastics that range from soft and sticky (one use is in PostIt Notes) to soft elastic materials (used in the soles of shoes) to hard pliable rubbers (used in tires and roads). The vast majority of TPEs are derived from combinations of styrene and butadiene; butadiene is a energy intensive byproduct of ethylene cracking from crude oil.

Bioelectrochemical systems (BES) have recently emerged as a central technology in an attempt to produce electricity. In a BES, bacteria interact with electrodes using electrons, which are either removed or supplied through an electrical circuit. The most recognized type of BES is microbial fuel cells (MFCs), in which useful power is generated from electron donors as, for example, present in wastewater.

Permanent magnetic materials find wide applications in energy generation. The materials providing best performances (e.g., high energy product), such as NdFeB, contains a large weight percentage of rare earth metals. As rare earth materials are critical materials and is projected to face a shortage in supply, DOE has invested considerable resources to find substitute materials for the rare earth based permanent magnetic materials in a recent APRPA-E REACT call.

Capturing 3D Footwear and Impression Marks near scene of a crime could play an essential role for biometrics survey or crime investigation. Existing laser scanning methods are good at capturing long-range and large areas (e.g. full room, or whole crime scene); and microscopy technology may serve the purpose of capturing micro-scale structures with a few millimeters range. However, there is a lack of affordable technologies that can capture crime scenes in the middle-range (few millimeters to a meter) that could achieve at least 300 dpi (dots per inch) in 3D.

Carbon-based heterogeneous catalysts synthesized from renewable feedstock enable the conversion of biomass to biofuels and to biorenewable chemicals. The Tessonnier group uses approaches inspired from nature and from organic/organometallic chemistry to synthesize novel nanocarbon-based and nanocarbon-supported heterogeneous catalysts. For example, we recently developed basic catalysts made solely of C and N, which demonstrated an exceptional activity and stability for the synthesis of biodiesel, used as a model biomass conversion reaction.

Intermetallic compounds play important roles in modern functional materials, such as electronic devices, special alloys for usages in aerospace, superconductors, and energy storage and conversion. We are making quality single crystalline materials and to evaluate their electronic, magnetic, and thermoelectric properties. Student is expected to explore new intermetallic phases through various synthetic techniques.

Students will work on a project aimed to prepare smart nanodevices for catalyzing sequences of chemical reactions to convert biomass into biorenewable fuels and chemical commodities. The nanostructured materials will be composed of organic and inorganic species that will work cooperatively to effectively promote chemical conversions behaving like nanosized assembly lines. The students will be trained in the synthesis and characterization of hybrid mesoporous materials.

Metallic nanoparticles and nanostructures are of much interest due to a broad range in applications such as optoelectronics, biosensing, and medical diagnostics amongst others. The fabrication of many of these materials is done through lithographic means typically taking place on reflective surfaces such as silicon wafers. The typical characterization methods such as SEM, TEM, and AFM are unable to directly study the optical properties of systems or follow dynamic events in real-time compared to optical microscopy techniques.

Cu2ZnSnS4 (CZTS) is one of the most promising materials for solar energy harvesting. Made of highly abundant, widely distributed and relatively biocompatible elements, and with a direct band gap of 1.5 eV, CZTS is an affordable, greener and more sustainable alternative to other semiconductors such as GaAs, CdTe, CuInS2 (CIS), or CuInxGa1-xSe2 (CIGS).